Eight Missouri ministers accused of intercourse abuse in Southern Baptist Convention report • Missouri Unbiased

The Southern Baptist Conference on Thursday released a once-secret and prolonged record of accused intercourse abusers — several of whom are in the Midwest — inside the denomination.

The 205-page checklist is a compilation of ministers and other church employees who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The list is described as a “fluid, working document” that was additionally incomplete but largely pulls information about abusers from published information stories.

The publication of the listing comes after the discharge Sunday of a 300-page report by an independent investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for decades have acquired reports of sexual abuse committed by church staff, pastors and others. But these stories were largely kept secret and, moderately than acting upon and investigating stories of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The whole thing must be seen for what it's,” wrote former Southern Baptist Conference government committee member and common counsel D. August Boto in an inside e mail that was printed within the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism.”

The disaster rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is analogous in many ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in both faiths systematically hid information about sexual misconduct, appeared to show extra concern about their own legal legal responsibility than the victims and at instances didn't expel accused abusers from positions of authority.

In 2007, Father Thomas Doyle, a Catholic priest credited as one of many first to warn of his own denomination’s clergy intercourse abuse crisis, wrote a letter to SBC leadership conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders have been repeating the failures of the Catholic church in dealing with intercourse abuse.

Doyle was instructed, “Southern Baptist leaders truly don't have any authority over native churches,” a response that Doyle considered dismissive, according to the investigative report. 

That very same 12 months, on the SBC conference in San Antonio, Oklahoma pastor Wade Burleson made a motion to create a database of Southern Baptist clergy who had been convicted or credibly accused of, or had confessed to sexual abuse. The proposal was meant to “assist in stopping any future sexual abuse or harassment.”

The database proposal appeared to go nowhere, in line with the report, and witnesses at the convention recalled little about it except to precise their opinion that it could “violate local church autonomy.”

Ultimately, a staffer for the SBC govt committee since 2007 had maintained a list of accused ministers and church staff, nevertheless it was kept hidden from the public and even SBC executive committee trustees, in line with the report.

Southern Baptist leaders mentioned publicizing the listing of credibly accused abusers represented “an preliminary, however necessary, step in direction of addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform within the Conference.”

“Every entry on this checklist reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse,” said a joint assertion from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, each SBC executive committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts find hope and therapeutic, and that church buildings will utilize this record proactively to protect and care for probably the most vulnerable amongst us.”

Legal professionals for the SBC executive committee researched the checklist of accused abusers, taking steps to verify data it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that might be confirmed, while redacting entries where somebody was acquitted or did not have a final disposition, in addition to data that would establish victims.

Missouri males characteristic prominently on the checklist. They embody:

This story comes from the Midwest Newsroom, an investigative journalism collaboration together with IPR, KCUR 89.3, Nebraska Public Media News, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR. For more in-depth news from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to follow us on Twitter.